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J&K needs peace Phelps shows the way |
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Signs of slowdown
Caught in a catch-22 situation
Support no, awards yes
Dealing with China BJP: A party without a sense of direction Let’s make a virtue of being useless
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J&K needs peace THE situation in Jammu and Kashmir has been moving from bad to worse. Tuesday’s firing on the protesters in Srinagar is the worst incident that has occurred since the issue of allotment of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board rocked the state. Never before has public opinion in Jammu and the Valley been so contradictory, so out of sync with the national mood. Continuous blockade of the Jammu-Srinagar highway gave the separatists in the Valley the idea of marching to Muzzafarabad in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. It is sad that after a long time, i.e., nearly six years since the Assembly elections, the separatists have got a new lease of life. Consequently, the green flag is out and the cry for azadi is heard once again, much to the chagrin of the nationalists and the liberals in the Valley. While the situation is the legacy of a thoughtless Governor, who sought to mix politics with religion, the crisis has become very serious requiring attention of the government, all parties and opinion makers. The Sangh Parivar with an eye on the imagined electoral gains found in the heady mix an opportunity to revive the waning appeal of Hindutva. Its outfits like the BJP cannot escape blame by claiming that the Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti spearheading the agitation is apolitical. The Samiti will lose its appeal and its foot soldiers the moment the Parivar withdraws its support. As the all-party meetings on the issue have brought out, the national consensus is to end the regional and communal divide, the sooner the better. The urgency is on account of the fact that the enemies of the nation have been relishing the unpleasant goings-on in the Valley. The issue is no longer about a plot of land. It is about re-establishing the age-old Jammu-Valley ties, keeping Hindus and Muslims of the state, as indeed of the whole country, united and telling Pakistan and the separatists backed by it that we are capable of sorting out the differences ourselves. First and foremost is the need to bring about peace in J&K. For this, all political parties, particularly the PDP and the National Conference in the Valley and the BJP and the Congress in Jammu, should take the initiative to calm the agitationists while the government should do everything possible to find a solution to the problem of providing all necessary facilities to the Amarnath pilgrims every year.
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Phelps shows the way THE Olympics have been around for a long time indeed. The world’s best compete in them. But none has dominated the way swimmer Michael Phelps has done. He has become the “winningest” Olympic athlete ever with his 10th and 11th career gold medals at the Beijing Games. In the process he has set five world records in five events. His hunger for medals is not yet satiated. How can it be? He is on line for winning all eight of his events to take down Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds at the 1972 Munich Games. So clear is his domination that everyone else seems to be competing for silver while Phelps is only against the clock. That is why a frustrated competitor from Russia, Alexander Sukhorukov, said about the gangly 23-year-old American: “He is just a normal person, but may be from a different planet”. British swimmer Simon Burnett has a different take on this never-seen domination: “He is not from another planet; he is from the future. His father made him and made a time machine. Sixty years from now, he is an average swimmer, but he has come back here to mop up”. Such adulation is hard to come by from one’s nearest rivals. It has to be earned the hard way — call it the Phelps way. Look at his workload: 17 races covering more than two miles, often against swimmers who specialise in one or two events. In swimming, new records eclipse the old timings in hundredths of a second. Phelps crushed one of them by more than four seconds. Even when his goggles malfunctioned during one race, he squinted through water-filled lenses, and still set a world record! So what is the secret of this stupendous success? Simple. He hates to lose. That is why he is king of all that he surveys. There is a lesson in that for all of us in India. This killer instinct, this burning zeal to be the best, is the mantra for success. Phelps seems to recite it all the time. Watching the greatest athlete of all times in action is an honour. But the real honour would be to try to emulate him.
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Signs of slowdown THE general belief that industrial production is slowing down has got strengthened from the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) numbers for June, 2008, released on Tuesday. The industrial growth of 5.4 per cent during June is, no doubt, higher than May’s disappointing 4.1 per cent figure, yet this should not be seen as any pick up in industrial activity. There is now almost unanimity among private and government experts that the GDP growth for the current fiscal will be below 8 per cent. The reasons for the slowdown are not hard to trace. The Reserve Bank of India can take the credit for decelerating growth though the effect of its monetary tightening is yet to be seen on inflation, which jumped to a new high of 12.01 per cent last Thursday. The RBI credit policy is directed at suppressing demand for products. Yet the latest figures reveal that the production of consumer durable and non-durable goods has surged to a healthy 12.2 per cent. The production of capital goods, however, has declined sharply to 5.6 per cent from 23 per cent a year ago. In order to control inflation, the RBI has raised the cost of capital, but this has dampened investment activity more than consumption. The industrial slowdown will get reflected in the corporate performance in the coming months. Fortunately, the global oil prices are on the retreat and if the trend continues, inflation could return to a single digit provided the government rolls back the oil prices. Oil is cooling due to the declining demand in the US. Unless the US economy bounces back, the global economic scenario would not look up. Despite all talk of decoupling, India’s economy will move in tandem with the US, European and Asian economies.
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They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me. — Nathaniel Lee
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Caught in a catch-22 situation THE Pakistan Army’s summary reversal of the government’s notification placing control of the ISI under the Interior Ministry did not go well abroad as well as within Pakistan. The US, while welcoming Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Washington, had let the world know of the ISI support to the Taliban and others responsible for the July 7 bomb blast at the Indian Embassy in Kabul. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has often accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban. He has termed the ISI as the “world’s biggest terrorists”. India’s National Security Adviser, not known for any adverse comment on the India-Pakistan security relations, has also accused the ISI of the embassy attack. The ISI’s involvement in toppling democratically elected governments, rigging elections, autonomous handling of foreign relations, vigilantism, picking up people and making them disappear have tarnished its own image and that of the Pakistan Army. Shuja Nawaz, in his book Crossed Swords, writes of a sworn affidavit filed by Pakistan’s Defence Secretary in a High Court confirming that “his ministry had no operational control over the two rogue agencies (ISI and ISPR) and, therefore, he was unable to enforce the court’s orders on either agency in matters relating to detentions”. But the ISI is not the only challenge facing the Pakistan Army. It faces some more serious strategic, operational and credibility issues. After nine long years of command, General Musharraf had handed over a thorny baton of the Chief to his successor, Gen Ashfaque Kiyani! Pakistan has always been concerned with the non-acceptance of the Durand Line by Afghanistan along its Western border. From time to time, Afghanistan has claimed the Pashtun areas of Pakistan, exacerbating Pakistan's security concern. Although the Pakistan Army does not fear any outright attack from the much weaker Afghan military, any Indian footprint in Afghanistan creates unrest among Pakistani military planners fearing the prospect of a two-front war. For long, they have followed the “strategic depth” policy to be able to use influence and space in Afghanistan to overcome Pakistan’s geostrategic disadvantages vis-a-vis India. The continuing support to the resurgent Taliban and covert ISI operations show that the Pakistan Army is still determined to convert Afghanistan into a client state for “strategic depth”. In the post-Cold War and 9/11 geopolitical environment, when it is no longer possible to redraw national boundaries with or without a conflict, the extension of “strategic depth” into Afghanistan makes no sense. Such a strategy not only causes antagonism and regional tension but also inhibits Pakistan from extending trade, commerce and culture to its western neighbours and beyond. Pakistan’s military planners fail to realise that after 9/11, no one in the world is willing to accept the Taliban’s influence or wishes to see the Karzai government destabilised. The US and NATO forces cannot withdraw from Afghanistan without tangible results. For them, it is a question of their homeland’s security. The Americans lost 28 soldiers in June; the largest number in any one month since 2001. Since then Pakistan is under tremendous pressure to deal decisively with jihadis living across the 1,350-mile-long porous and rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Linked to the Pakistan policy on Afghanistan is the challenge of the rising tide of radical Islamic militancy in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the NWFP which threatens to tear the country asunder. The lawless FATA, an insurgent haven, is perceived not just as a national but a global threat. The Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps, staffed by tribesmen from FATA have often surrendered rather than fight their fellow tribals involved in militancy. The casualties have been mounting due to an increase in the number and intensity of militants’ attacks on Army and para-military units that are ill-equipped and untrained for a low-intensity conflict. The Pakistan Army has considerable experience in inducing terrorism and insurgency in other countries, but it has little experience in combating insurgents in its own country. This is obvious from the manner in which it has been handling the situation in Waziristan. Its policy of appeasement, striking deals and peace agreements with militants in return for “no attacks on government forces and installations” and “aerial assaults” shows a lack of will, experience and improper multi-disciplinary doctrine for such operations. The Army is in a Catch-22 situation. Peace negotiations with militants in the present operational situation implies the following: One, socio-political fundamentalists’ influence gets encouraged and may increase eastward. Two, there can be greater international pressure. Three, the damage to Pakistan’s moderate Islamic image is bound to be caused. If the Army fights them seriously, then more and more Army units get sucked into this mission, resulting in the dilution of the military posture on the eastern border. In such a situation, the Army will be perceived as fighting at Washington’s behest, and there can be possible alienation of the political/tribal leaders of FATA and the NWFP. From a broader strategic cultural viewpoint, the Army continues to believe that Pakistan must be physically and ideologically protected from India’s influence. It neither accepts India’s geo-strategic advantages nor the fact that for regional security, India believes in Pakistan’s social, political and economic stability. According to Pakistani strategic analyst Ayesha Siddiqa, “Pakistan has never ventured to extend its security vision beyond India”. The latest revival of the “bleed India, especially in J & K” policy along the LoC and in other parts of India may also be linked to the overall strategic insecurity. But there is a flip side here, too, of causing a setback to the confidence building achieved during the last three-four years and threatening to derail the India-Pakistan peace process, as warned by Dr Manmohan Singh on August 2 in Colombo. There will also be disappointment among people on both sides of the border, particularly in J & K, who support the ceasefire on the LoC and further dialogue. The other challenges before the Pakistan Army are of its vested interests and institutional credibility. Criticism of the military, once rare, is now becoming widespread and well informed. General Musharraf’s initiative in Kargil without political approval became Pakistan’s Waterloo from the politico-military-diplomatic viewpoint. The demand to institute a public enquiry continues to be strong in civil society. Recently, Ayesha Siddiqa revealed a huge financial empire and vested interest of the Pakistan Army in her book, Military Inc. She estimates that Pakistan’s military-industrial complex is worth around $20.7 billion, covering hotels, malls, insurance companies, banks, farms, industrial units and 12 per cent of the state-owned land. Military Inc analyses the internal and external dynamics of this gradual power building and the impact it has on Pakistan's political and economic development. The challenge for the Army is to make it publicly transparent in terms of financial reporting and in creating a distance between such operations and the military high command. General Kiyani also has to cleanse the Army of fundamentalists and those who maintain organic links with the jihadis. As the “Zia bharti” (those who joined during General Zia’s time and are considered conservative and fostering religious ideology and dogmas) officers and men gain seniority, more and more soldiers may become vulnerable to the influence of fundamentalist outfits and their ethos. Pakistan’s “strategic enclave” is dominated by the military with the support of professional bureaucrats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This group, like most bureaucracies, is slow to admit mistakes, remains resistant to alternative world-views, and tends to lean on organisational preferences when faced with new situations. The new political set-up is too weak to influence the antiquated, narrow and shortsighted outlook and agendas like the “strategic depth” idea and the use of Islamic groups in Afghanistan and India. There is nothing to suggest that the “strategic enclave” has the vision, will or inclination to change the course that the Pakistan Army has adopted since the days of General
Zia. The writer, a former Chief of Army Staff, is associated with the Observer Research Foundation. New Delhi.
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Support no, awards yes
I
came to know about Abhinav Bindra’s Olympic gold only in the afternoon. Getting to a television quickly I savoured the long awaited moment. Of particular poignancy to me were Abhinav’s father’s comments saying Abhinav was mostly replying in “haanji”, “haanji” when he was congratulated on the phone by him. I had tears streaming down my face thinking that that would also be the response of my elder son who is also shy and introvert by nature. The entire household was excited by the victory, including my two sons. Even they could claim a slender connection to Abhinav. They knew that their Uncle Gullu’s father had been Abhinav’s first coach and mentor. The fact that Uncle Gullu (Lt-Col J.S. Dhillon) had taken them to the Paratrooper centre in Bangalore and arranged for them to spend some time shooting at the 10-metre air rifle indoor range there obviously made them feel some sort of kinship with Abhinav. Later watching television well into the night I realised that kids all over Chandigarh and Punjab were feeling the same. Especially young shooters with television channels panning them giving statements like “now I feel I too can win an Olympic gold” while standing in the shooting range in Chandigarh. Reading the various articles in the newspaper the next day I realised that though the country was justifiably proud of Abhinav’s victory, the win was more that of the Bindra family rather than the sports federation of the country. His father A.S. Bindra scripted Abhinav’s victory and not everyone can have a father like him. Bindra senior did not approach the system after realising his son had the latent talent to make it big. For instance when Abhinav’s first coach J.S. Dhillon recommended an imported rifle for Abhinav, the youngster got the rifle within days. The sports federation has not been able to procure rifles for girls practicing at the indoor range created at Badal village in Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s constituency for months together despite the fact that it has already been paid for the equipment. A.S. Bindra not only arranged for the most sophisticated equipment but also hand held his son ensuring that he did not have to approach the sports federation as a beggar for support. Abhinav got a personal range, the best of coaches and a number of supporting staff besides the best training abroad from coaches known for delivering results. The country could not have given him this. So when I saw youngsters dreaming big I was filled with pride but also a tinge of sadness knowing they were oblivious of the Herculean effort put behind the dream to get India’s maiden individual gold medal. Sports administrators who are justifiably announcing awards for Abhinav could do well to look into the fact that shooters in Delhi do not even have an appropriate range to practise their skills what to talk about ammunition which is perennially in short supply. Therefore, the challenge before the nation today is to create the same infrastructure made available for Abhinav by his parents for the other promising shooters of the country also. Bindra senior and others in similar positions like him could also do well to sponsor other “Abhinavs” waiting in the wings for their shot at Olympic
glory.
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Dealing with China Speaking
during the nuclear debate in the Lok Sabha recently, Finance Minister Chidambaram, reeling out statistics of the all-round economic progress made by China, declared that he would like India to emulate that country. Those figures are very impressive; yet to look at them in isolation will be incorrect. Whenever, we talk of that emerging great power in relation to ourselves, it will be more useful to take a holistic view. At one end is the historical background which cannot be just wished away. Following the war of 1962, China has been occupying several thousand kilometres of our territory stretching across the northern borders — from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh. It actively aided Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes and supported that country politically. It provided military assistance to countries in our neighbourhood, aware that this would cause us discomfort. On the Kashmir issue, its position was aligned with that of Pakistan. Arms were surreptitiously supplied to insurgents in the North-East. All of these, together, were actions clearly inimical to India’s interests. The position has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. Bilateral trade between our two countries, a measly half a billion dollars in the mid-1990s, has crossed $ 50 billion and the rate of increase shows no sign of tapering down; it may well cross $ 100 billion by 2010. China’s position on Kashmir is now more balanced . After being vocally offensive following the Pokhran blasts of 1998, it has accepted the Agni series missile tests, despite knowing that these are meant to cope with China-related contingencies. There are some reports that China is providing assistance to the rebel forces in the North-East; even if true, the extent is not considerable. During their visits to India in 2005 and 2007, Chinese Premier Wen Jia Bao and President Hu Jin Tao spoke of the common strategic interests of both countries and the need for them to cooperate in an environment of peace and tranquility. The same “feel good” theme was repeated during the visit of the Indian Prime Minister to China followed by that of Mrs Sonia Gandhi, to which the Chinese leadership gave much more attention than warranted by protocol. There is, however, a downside to this beautiful story. Talks on the resolution of the boundary dispute are moving at snail’s pace and with no sense of urgency. The “settled populations” theory has been thrown aside with Tawang and Arunachal Pradesh now being claimed as Chinese territory. The railway link to Tibet will allow China to mobilise forces on the India-China border more quickly and in much larger numbers. Modernisation of China’s maritime forces and the bases from which they could operate is proceeding on high priority. Port development programmes are being executed by the Chinese in Pakistan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. China sees itself as a global power on a par with the USA in another 20 years. Despite its per capita income being only one-tenth that of the USA and its GDP less than a fifth, it is already being treated as a major power, including by the Americans. In this same way, Indians should not feel that their lower statistical comparison with the Chinese indices puts them at a huge disadvantage. We have, no doubt, a very long road to travel before we can get to those levels but our power potential is already beginning to show and across the world, China included, this reality has dawned. If there is much greater recognition of India it is not because we have suddenly become more loveable but because we have begun to be perceived as a new power centre. India’s elephantine progress may be slower than that of the Dragon but the movement is sure and steady. So while we should admire China’s progress and do what we need to do to move with greater speed ourselves, there is no need to focus on emulation. China looks forward to being a superpower by 2030. It does not see India in the same league but recognises that we cannot be excluded from the so-called high table of six odd major powers, termed by a Chinese scholar as “planet shaping countries” that will have global relevance in the next 25 years. There are areas in which the two countries will come into competition such as need for energy resources and even political dissonance, and these are issues which India’s diplomacy will need to factor into its strategies. Our view should be long term and clear. In the next 20 years, in the same period in which China seeks to be on a par with the USA, India must acquire capabilities that will be seen as sufficiently credible by those who matter. There are some pre-requisites to this goal. One, we must move towards the objective in a focused way and not get diverted by short-term issues. Two, economic growth must be the pivot and greater engagement with China will help in this process just as closer interface with the USA is helping China. Three, given the ground realities, this engagement should be watchful. Finally, dissuasive military power is essential. We have to assess and respond to capabilities, not intentions. In short, India needs to engage China positively but carefully, looking always at the future without getting bogged down by the present. The writer is a former Director General, Defence Planning Staff
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BJP: A party without a sense of direction IN the fast-evolving political culture of the country, the main opposition party appears to be directionless, possibly not knowing what path and policies to follow. Afraid of new, it is following the beaten track. One is reminded of a conversation with an important leader of the BJP. He was a minister in the Vajpayee government and now holds an important position in the party. Talking of the Ayodhya movement, he said that the BJP is going to develop like the Christian Democrats of Germany in the coming years. His view was that the Ayodhya movement had helped the party get its bearings in the national politics. But the loss of power in 2004 appears to have unsettled the party and all those thoughts of evolving like the Christian Democrats seem to have taken a back seat. When former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani became the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate and was endorsed by the National Democratic Alliance partners, a hope arose that the party would be seriously knocking at the doors of power after the next general election. There was an inherent strength in the party too. After all, the BJP was ruling in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and was a partner in power in Orissa, Bihar and Punjab. The BJP was building its case well by taking up issues of price rise, inflation, terrorism and harping on its pet themes like Muslim appeasement and Ramsethu apart from Ram Janmabhoomi. This appear-ed to be enabling the BJP to not only get support from its traditionally RSS-nurtured constituency but also from other sections of society. But its recent stand on the nuclear issue and the party’s senior leader Sushma Swaraj’s contention from the official forum that the recent terrorist attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad were the products of the ruling UPA’s machination have not only created revulsion among the lower and middle classes but also created serious doubts over the party’s credibility among the urban youth. The BJP has always considered Indian people as gullible. One who has followed the saffron party since 1984 would know that the party deliberately uses tools of confusion to keep people guessing about its real intention. The same approach is being currently employed in the Amarnath shrine controversy. In Jammu, the BJP local leaders are behind the agitation but the Central leadership maintains that the movement was a popular uprising. Like the PDP, which in the valley used the issue of allotment of land to the Amarnath Shrine Board for facilitating the arduous journey of pilgrims who come for pilgrimage annually, the BJP is also exploiting the issue for electoral dividends. At the same time, it is trying to project itself as the protector of national unity and integrity. On the nuclear issue, the party did not endear itself to non-partisan electorate by opposing the Indo-US nuclear agreement. People at large genuinely believe that the BJP would have supported the Indo-US nuclear deal if it was a ruling party. Apart from its traditional Sangh-nurtured political constituency, no other section of society appears to be enamoured of the BJP at present. Even the NDA is not a cohesive unit as was evident during the trust vote. If NDA MPs had been allowed to exercise their vote according to their conscience, many more BJP and its allies’ MPs would have voted in favour of the deal. One indication came immediately after the trust vote. Realising that the BJP is not a winning horse, the Akali Dal has sent a clear and loud signal to the BSP for an electoral understanding in Punjab. The drift in the main opposition party is primarily because of the absence of a decisive leadership. The present leadership is sharply divided. The reins of the party are in the hands of Rajnath Singh, who not only lacks intellectual depth but also suffers from an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the party’s prime ministerial candidate L. K. Advani. Even Advani does not enjoy unchallenged loyalty anymore. His leadership came under serious doubts after his statement on Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was condemned by the Sangh and its outfits, including a section of the BJP itself. Once challenged and subsequently damaged the leadership of Advani cannot be re-established and blindly accepted by the rank and file of the BJP. There is hardly anytime left for a course correction. Only the UPA can help in reviving the BJP’s electoral fortunes. The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Let’s make a virtue of being useless ANYONE British who watched the opening ceremony in Beijing must have had the same thought, that we’ll never manage that and utterly humiliate ourselves. Whoever’s in charge will announce that, to save money, we won’t bother with fireworks… The poor Albanians will be jostled all afternoon by countries who arrive late because of signal failure at London Bridge, and have to barge past them to get to their place. And nothing will be ready. The swimming pool will have no water in it and the competitors will be told to run backwards and forwards along the bottom. Or throughout, the commentators will be telling us things like, “Still no sign of the fancied Ukrainian in the 200m breaststroke final. The last we heard he was still at reception trying to get 50p for his locker, but apparently they’ve run out and can’t open the till as it’s broken and the engineer’s busy trying to mend the vending machine as the Brazilians are very angry that they put in 70p for a packet of Quavers which got stuck. So for the time being here’s a replay of the badminton, that finally got started after the mix-up with being double-booked with a pilates class.” We could make a virtue out of being useless, and declare ourselves above the vulgar glitz of most Olympics. Except that to earn the right to stage it, we had to plead to the International Olympic Committee. This is a committee that’s had nine presidents, of which three have been barons and two have been counts. Maybe they’ll decide soon to represent a wider section of the population and choose an emperor. Another president was the delightful Mr. Samaranch, a senior organiser for General Franco’s dictatorship. Everyone’s desperate to please the president, so there were probably countries who suggested “Give us the Games and we’ll introduce clay Republican shooting”. But Samaranch only wins silver medal for “Most right-wing Olympic president”, as Avery Brundage was an admirer of Hitler, even praising the Third Reich at a rally in 1941. Yet the Olympic Charter states: “No kind of political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in the Olympic areas.” As if the decision to choose Beijing was nothing to do with politics. They must have thought: “Say what you will about shooting monks and executing dissidents, but they certainly know how to put on a kayak slalom event without a hitch.” Awarding Beijing the Games, we were told, would help human rights because the Chinese had promised to make an effort, what with everyone watching. And who could have guessed they’d break their promise. Perhaps we should try this approach with others who can’t stop their brutality, such as serial killers. And yet I watch every possible moment, and spent twice as much time studying the women’s archery as I have on the war in Georgia. With the Olympic Committee being the way it is, surely they can arrange for invading and occupying to become an Olympic sport, then it would be so much easier to stay in touch with current affairs. — By arrangement with
The Independent
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